The Reason Why eBook

“Betty is wonderful, isn’t she, darling?”
Mary said. “But, Em, you don’t think
there is any truth in it, do you? Mother would
be so horribly shocked if there was anything like
one of Betty’s plays in the family, wouldn’t
she? And Tristram would never allow it either!”

“Of course not, you goosie,” answered
Emily. “But Betty is right in one way—­Zara
has got a mysterious face, and—­and, Mary—­Tristram
seemed somehow changed, I thought; rather sarcastic
once or twice.”

And then their maid came in and put a stop to their
confidences.

* * * *
*

“She is the most wonderful person I have ever
met, Ethelrida,” Lady Anningford was just then
saying, as she and the hostess stopped at her door
and let Lady Thornby and the young Countess of Melton
go on.—­“She is wickedly beautiful
and attractive, and there is something odd about her,
too, and it touches me; and I don’t believe she
is really wicked a bit. Her eyes are like storm
clouds. I have heard her first husband was a
brute. I can’t think who told me but it
came from some one at one of the Embassies.”

“We don’t know much about her, any of
us,” Lady Ethelrida said, “but Aunt Jane
asked us all in the beginning to trust Tristram’s
judgment: he is awfully proud, you know.
And besides, her uncle, Mr. Markrute, is so nice.
But, Anne—­” and Lady Ethelrida paused.

“Yes,” said Lady Ethelrida, “but,
Anne, do you really think Tristram looks happy?
I thought when he was not speaking his face seemed
rather sad.”

“The Crow came down in the train with them,”
Lady Anningford announced. “I’ll
hear the whole exact impression of them after dinner
and tell you. The Crow is always right.”

“She is so very attractive, I am sure, to every
man who sees her, Anne. I hope Lord Elterton
won’t begin and make Tristram jealous. I
wish I had not asked him. And then there is Laura—­It
was awful taste, I think, her insisting upon coming,
don’t you?—­Anne, if she seems as if
she were going to be horrid you will help me to protect
Zara, won’t you?—­And now we really
must dress.”

* * * *
*

In another room Mrs. Harcourt was chatting with her
sister and Lady Highford.

“She is perfectly lovely, Laura,” Miss
Opie said. “Her hair must reach down to
the ground and looks as if it would not come off, and
her skin isn’t even powdered—­I examined
it, on purpose, in a side light. And those eyes!
Je-hoshaphat! as Jimmy Danvers says.”

“Poor, darling Tristram!” Laura sighed
sentimentally while she inwardly registered her intense
dislike of “the Opie girl.” “He
looks melancholy enough—­for a bridegroom;
don’t you think so, Kate?” and she lowered
her eyes, with a glance of would-be meaning, as though
she could say more, if she wished. “But
no wonder, poor dear boy! He loathed the marriage;
it was so fearfully sudden. I suppose the Markrute
man had got him in his power.”